ND leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis during his speech to his parliamentary group, on Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2018. (Photo by Eurokinissi/Yorgos Kontarinis)

ATHENS – Major opposition New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis wants an overhaul of the Greek Constitution, including allowing private non-profit universities that are now prohibited as he also took shots at Prime Minister and Radical Left SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras for wanting Constitutional reforms too.

He called SYRIZA party’s proposals for constitutional revision “dangerous,” the business newspaper Naftemporiki said.

“It smacks of political arrogance for those that denigrated the referendum institution in 2015 to now propose an expansion of the institution,” Mitsotakis said, referring to Tsipras reneging on a referendum he called asking voters to back him in rejecting austerity measures demanded by the country’s creditors. They did. He didn’t.

He said he also wants a four-year election cycle and to disallow the Parliament from being dissolved if lawmakers can’t agree on appointing a symbolic, powerless Greek President, which was a key reason New Democracy, under Antonis Samaras, was defeated by SYRIZA i January, 2015.

While previous New Democracy governments didn’t to allow private colleges, Mitsotakis said now is the time to do so. “We are leaving behind us ideological obsessions, ones that lead to huge economic losses for Greek families, and who prevent the country from becoming a protagonist in the education sector in SE Europe and the Mediterranean,” he said.

Elections must be held by October, 2019 with speculation growing they will be sooner with Tsipras trying to keep the Conservatives, who have double-digit leads in polls, from running away even more.

1 Comment

His platform is still small, his outlook is Pro NATO, Pro EU, Pro everything but Greece…he not is able to lead greece anywhere..A weak subservient nation in debt the next 50yrs is not going anywhere but down..with his views or lack thereof greece will be nothing as it is now, a joke to the world on how not to run a country..